US deportation practices violate law: UN refugee agency chief

Geneva: The head of the UN refugee agency said Monday that President Donald Trump's America has engaged in deportation methods that violate international law, while also criticising a broader "backlash" in some countries against migrants and refugees.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, used a speech to express sorrow that severe funding cuts and shortages had caused his organisation, UNHCR, to lose about 5,000 jobs this year, accounting for nearly a quarter of its total workforce. He stated that the cuts may not be completed.

“This was certainly not an easy year for any of us,” Grandi told the opening of UNHCR's executive committee. “But remember, please: There has never been an easy year to be a refugee — and there never will be.” He did cite some bright spots and praised the Trump administration-led peace efforts in Congo, where conflict has displaced millions of people.

At the UN General Assembly last month, the Trump administration — which has slashed support this year for international humanitarian aid — pitched other countries on its view that the global system of seeking asylum has been abused and needs to be revamped, in part by cracking down on migration.

Other traditional donors have cut back their aid outlays for UNHCR this year.

In recent years, the agency has received roughly USD 5 billion a year — or half its budgetary requirements — even as conflict and repression in places like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan, Venezuela and Ukraine have led the number of people fleeing their homes to roughly double over the last decade — to 122 million.

In the politically charged environment of today, Grandi said, “putting the (UN) Refugee Convention and the principle of asylum on the table would be a catastrophic error.” He insisted that “national sovereignty and the right to seek asylum ”are not incompatible. They are complementary.” Grandi, whose term is up at the end of this year, decried an erosion of respect for international law in certain developed countries and noted that most refugees are taken in by poorer ones.

“I am worried that the current debate – in Europe, for example – and some current deportation practices – such as in the United States – address real challenges in manners not consistent with international law,” he said.

The Trump administration has said it has an obligation to remove the “worst of the worst." Grandi also cited some optimistic developments: More than 1 million refugees from Syria have now returned home. A “glimmer of hope” has emerged in the eastern Congo conflict between Rwanda-backed forces and Congo's armed forces.

“Thanks to peace efforts spearheaded by the United States, instead of speaking only of more bloodshed, or more refugees, we can start to think – cautiously, but a little bit more optimistically — of stability and returns,” he said.

With PTI inputs